ABMF - Beachhead Saturday Night.

[gstark]

Resized, but otherwise straight from the camera. I'm thinking that some - many - of my shots will benefit from conversions to B&W, but I thought that I'd just quickly share some of these with you anyway.

Some of the performers from the Rod Jeffrey (Beachhead) gig at Tattersals Hotel on the Saturday night.

This set was one of the few that ran overtime, and with good reason. The room was filled to capacity, and Rod had them eating out of his hand. He was joined on stage by a variety of other performers, including Mal Eastic. The joy that the musicians were experiencing was evident in their faces, and the audience was ready and willing to drink it all in.


Long time Beachhead guitarist, Gary Dale.




Australian blues legend, Mal Eastic. In the background, Gail Page and Diana Wolfe were providing backing vocals.




Bassist Raoul Hawkins




Rod "Beachhead" Jeffrey.

[Bindii]

The lighting conditions look horrendous Gary! But the atmosphere looks fantastic!!! First one for me as the others look a little bit soft.. although I must admit that the blur kinda adds to them also...

[the foto fanatic]

Remarkably noise-free for ISO 1600.

[gstark]

Trevor,

Yes. The D300 rocks. It still blows on the largely red lighting though, and I've found that you have to really pull the exposures back to stop it from blocking up. That, of course, creates other issues.

Sue, yes, the lighting - in all the venues - was crap, but the music was hot. That meant that the players were rocking from side to side, or forwards and backwards ... there was one player who was so active that I couldn't even get him at the peak of any of his movements, he was that active. And no, he wasn't a drummer. Harp, I think, but up, down, left, up, right, down .... ouch!

The upshot of that is that it's difficult to acquire and hold focus. These players were rollickin' and the softness, I think, can be mostly attributed to subject movement. That's my excuse anyway.

As I do some post and add some sharpening (and convert some to B&W) I expect I'll be seeing some better results.

[gstark]

A couple of other comments on the lighting and such, while I remember ....

Something that I've never really struck before, but it underscores how bad the lighting was. I was seeing shadows from players, and/or their instruments, cutting across the faces of other performers on the stage. The guitarist second from stage left would cast a shadow from his guitar's headstock, for instance, directly onto the face of the guy on keys to immediate left.

That's suggesting strong side, rather than down, lighting.

As is often the case, some parts of the stage are better lit than others. The drummer sits in the back and is rarely it. The singer stands out front under the main spot, and one of the guitarists will typically stand to the side, just outside of the fall of any and every light source. I was seeing up to a three stop variation across the various players in most situations: I shot in six of the nine or ten different venues.

At one venue they had (oh, this was just great) four domestic spots in a ceiling rail in the front of the stage. Three of which the sound engineer backed off from their screw thread slightly. Enough to turn them off ... In the same room, on the wall on the side of the stage (stage left) there was an exhaust vent!